


Therapy for Alice

by inkabelle_designs



Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: BATIM, Other, alice angel - Freeform, alice doll, bendy and the ink machine - Freeform, plush, susie campbell - Freeform, therapy for alice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-27
Updated: 2018-02-27
Packaged: 2019-03-24 15:49:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13814412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkabelle_designs/pseuds/inkabelle_designs
Summary: After the events of Chapter 3, a tired Alice Angel sits in a secret room, surrounded by imagery of her beautiful cartoon self. In a moment of self pity, she cries silently to herself, saddened by what she's become, until an unlikely friend cheers her up.





	Therapy for Alice

Alice sat on a busted-up shay within the murky depths of the studio. How many years had it been? Two, ten, maybe decades at this point, time seemed nearly infinite when there was no way to gauge where the end would be. But there was one thing time couldn’t do: ease the pain. Ever since coming out of those disgusting soggy puddles, Alice found herself still weeping internally from what happened from before. Within her most inner caverns, she had very few comforts. The room held some of her old merchandise, posters that depicted how beautiful her character was. She kept three plush toys on her little couch, one of each character. Despite her malicious actions, there was a soft spot in her heart for plush dolls, and seeing a little Alice separated from a fabric Bendy and Boris felt wrong. She didn’t like the thought of them not being together, but the more she thought about it, the more she wanted to choke that little Bendy doll and chuck it across the room. She reached for it, holding it her clawed fingers tightly, squeezing it like a stress ball before throwing it as far as she could. But then, she snapped out of it, her mangled eyes widened in horror as she ran off to rescue it from the depths. Thankfully it hadn’t gotten into any tainted ink, and she cradled it all the way back to the shay. She was all alone, having left Boris in the other room while she contemplated the best way to go about opening him up. She certainly didn’t want to waste this opportunity, he was the most perfect model she’d ever come across, one she could not mess up on. Her hands shook slightly as she held the doll close to her chest, giving it an eyeful.

            She sat back down, legs crossed all lady-like, sighing as she hugged the doll close to her chest. Living in the crumbling studio was worse than any hell, worse than working there. It wasn’t really living, it was hardly surviving, there was no world to describe it other than “existing.” No one wanted this, no one wanted to live their entire life imprisoned. It gave a person too much time to dwell on things, and after a while, they’d begin to lose hope, becoming unsure if there was a way to move on.

            But Alice wasn’t truly alone. There were eyes everywhere, she knew that, no way to relieve herself, no one to open to. She set the Bendy doll down and picked up the one that bore her likeness, brushing its tender curls around gently. Those sweet little cheeks, surely there had to be some little girl out there who would kiss them and hold her tightly. Or maybe a little boy, both could want to re-enact the old episodes. But she feared for what they might’ve thought, in a ‘could-be would-be’ sort of way. Seeing this character, seeing her, the expectations that would bear, the expectation of perfection, the idea that an angel had to be perfect, that they defined perfect…. It brought her a deep sense of failure. An angel wasn’t perfect, no matter how hard she tried she had never been perfect for Joey. She never would be. What was the point of this endless slaughter, what was the point of carrying on? Why not just let herself rot away with the rest of this horrible labyrinth? She closed her eyes, unable to cry, for once wishing that she had tears to shed again. Ink dripped all around her from the pipes above. The pitter patters of the drops were enough to make what was left of her heart sink. She set the doll down, shifting her broken body and staring at her tiny feet, hands folded in her lap.

            “Hey, chin up! It’s not so bad!”

            The sound of a sudden voice made her jump, whipping her head around frantically to find the source, her vision coming up empty. It was then that she felt a tug on her skirt. Looking down, she found the Alice doll she’d just been holding trying to get her attention. The doll waved and tried to climb its way onto her lap. Alice just sighed and shook her head, holding the deformed part of her face in her hand.  _I’ve officially lost it, now the dolls are talking to me too. Ugh, someone just end this nightmare._

            “Hey, I heard that!” the doll yelled back. She sassily put her hands on her hips, standing in Alice’s lap, an eyebrow raised and a smirk on her face.

            “You’re not going crazy honey, I promise I’m real, and I’m here to help.”

            That voice, that belonged to a much younger Susie Campbell. How times had changed. Alice didn’t know what to think, much less what to say.

            “What could you possibly do to help me?” Alice retorted in disgust. She wrinkled her nose, turning away with a pouty face.

            “You can’t hide how you feel from me honey, I’ve been in that headspace of yours for too long. We need to talk.” The doll put her tiny hands around one of Alice’s, holding it with great care and comfort. “Please don’t be so hostile. We can’t keep going on like this. Talk to me, what’s really the matter?”

            Alice bit her lip, looking away. She didn’t want to let her guard down, she couldn’t. What if  _he_  was watching? She couldn’t risk it. But she knew full well why that little voice was doing this. In her head she could push it away, but it was much harder to do so outside of it. The doll hobbled over to Alice’s waist and gave it a big hug. Alice didn’t understand it, why was she being so nice? After all these years of being stuck together, why would she be kind to her?

            “I’ll wait as long as you need me to, we’ve got all the time in the world here.”

            “Alright, fine, you persistent little pincushion…” Alice gritted her teeth and balled her fists, looking away from the doll. “I just…I’m still not over it.”

            “Not over what?” the doll asked curiously.

            “Not over what…what  _he_  did, all those years ago. I just felt so…so invalidated? I’m not sure if that’s the right word, but I felt betrayed, and hurt. He just went and replaced me without a second thought, like I meant nothing to him!”

            “Why do you think you meant nothing to him?” the doll inquired.

            “Because he never said he was sorry, he was never satisfied with my performance, never gave me any credit when I was working as hard as I could. His visions were absurd, he was impossible to please! Oooh just the NERVE of that vile, disgusting, venomous man! What I wouldn’t give to rip him apart!”

            “Now now, that’s a little too far,” the doll said as she wagged her finger, “If you’re really going to be Alice Angel, you can’t keep ripping people to shreds.”

            “I AM Alice Angel, and I can do whatever the hell I want! Why shouldn’t I? They all deserve it, no one ever had my back, all of them were just pitiful kiss-ups! Next to Joey, Sammy had to be the worst of them all, he practically became-”

            “Ab-bubup. Shh.” The doll had jumped up and put a finger over Alice’s lips, clinging to her cheeks for dear life so as not to fall. Alice immediately silenced herself, raising an eyebrow in confusion at the plush toy.

“No judgements. This is what we call twisted thinking. I know you Susie, you’re not a bad person. But the fact is, they’re all human. Humans are flawed, it can’t be helped. We have to be loving and accepting of that and do the best we can to help them.”

“But what good will that do? None of them deserve it.” Alice’s eyes trailed off, staring at the ink puddles below, resting her head on her shoulder.

“None of us deserved any of this. Alice honey, what Joey did was inexcusable, my friends and I all agree, but nothing is going to change if we’re all stuck in the past.”

“But nothing has changed in all the time we’ve been here. It’s an endless cycle of falling apart and putting myself back together, I’m never going to be perfect, I’ll-”

“Is that really what you want? To be perfect?” the doll asked, “You may be picking your body back up, but you haven’t picked yourself up mentally in all the years I’ve known you. It’s the same routine every day, all the same negative thoughts.”

“I just want to forget it all…”

“You can’t. We can’t ever escape what’s happened, but we can move forward.”

“He deserves to pay.”

“We have to accept that it isn’t our place to take vengeance. Alice, fate will be much crueler to us if we keep on this path.”

“I just want closure, I just want to be free of this awful feeling.”

The doll sighed, “You got your closure the moment he did this to you. He doesn’t care about what happens to us Alice, even if you were perfect, it would never be good enough for him.”

Alice holds her decaying face in her hands, sniffling, crying. No tears were there, but no tears were needed to show how she felt.

“I-I won’t ever be good enough…He’ll never think I’m good enough, no one will.”

“Now now, I never said that,” the doll said as she plopped back down in Alice’s lap, “You are plenty good enough! Honey, look at you, you’re the bee’s knees! You’ve got a beautiful voice, a killer personality, and you give everything you do a hundred and ten percent. There’s so much about you that people love, and I know deep down you know that too.”

“But-”

“No butts about it! Just because one person doesn’t see you for who you really are doesn’t mean you should think any less of yourself. You’re brighter than any halo could ever hope to be, and I mean it!” The doll balled its tiny fists and grinned with encouragement, throwing her tiny hands in the air. Alice had to chuckle, this was the sweetest thing her better self had ever done.

“Thank you, Alice. This is why I loved voicing you back then.”

“Yeah, sure does bring back some good memories, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah…” The deformed angel looked up to the ceiling, silently praying to herself, as ironic as it was. “Do you think…do you think we’ll ever fix this?”

“Fix what?” the doll asked. She looked confused.

“Fix well…this.” Alice gestured towards her broken body.

“I think we can make it happen. The thick ink’s been helping quite a bit, as have the hearts. It still breaks mine a little bit though, I don’t like doing this…”

“It’s a necessary evil, if we don’t we might cease to exist.”

“At least it’s better than Norman.” The doll shuddered at the thought of the old projectionist. “Poor fella.”

“He slowly lost his sanity, as did Sammy. He used to be great, we’d have coffee every morning. I still remember, two sugars, but otherwise black, because-”

 **“Heaven forbid we add milk and clog up the vocal chords!”**  The two said it together in their best impression of the slightly pompous composer. They burst out laughing, holding their sides as the sound echoed through the room. A genuine laugh, now that was something neither had done in a very long time. Alice giggled as she covered her mouth slightly, petting the doll on the head with her other hand.

“Thank you, Alice. I needed that. I’m sorry for pushing you away all this time.”

The doll waved her hand and laughed, “Oh it’s quite alright, you just weren’t ready to talk about it. These things take time, and they also take friends.”

“That’s true. I just hope it’s not too late for us.”

“It’s never too late to start the healing process. There are gonna be days where you feel like everything is broken, we all have ups and downs. But at the end of it all, you’re gonna be okay. I promise, I’ll take care of you for as long as you let me. Now come on, we’ve got work to do.”

“It doesn’t feel right at all doing this,” Alice said, her head hung low.

“No, it doesn’t,” the doll replied, “Maybe we should take a break instead, have a little girl time. I know where we could find some of Henry’s old art supplies, we could draw for a little bit!”

“I-I’ve never been much of an artist really…besides, I know that fall in the elevator couldn’t have killed him, he’ll still be looking for us, as will-”

“Aw come on, angels don’t have to be so uptight ya know. They’re gonna take forever to find us, and besides, the supply closet isn’t that far away. Let’s go!”

“Okay okay, calm down.”

The doll had a tinkling laughter as Alice picked her up and carried her towards the door. The two left the room to go search out the forgotten pencils and paper.

But the minute they left, the remaining two plush dolls perked their heads up, looking towards the door. They had to wonder, what now? This changed everything.

**Author's Note:**

> This was written back in November of 2017 on my Tumblr account. Given it kind of got lost, I figured this could be an opportunity to bring it back.
> 
> This is inspired by some things that have happened in my own life. On my college campus, I attend counseling regularly, at least once a month. In fact, this Friday I'm looking forward to another visit. One of the things I was dealing with at the time of writing this was getting over an ex-boyfriend after six months of not being able to cope with it, and part of that is why I got so heavily into Alice during the time of Chapter 3's release. When hearing Susie's tapes, I saw her as a victim, someone that was puppeteer-ed by Joey by the heartstrings. I don't think that Alice Angel's actions in Chapter 3 are justified, killing people isn't something that's acceptable by any means, but to understand where she's coming from in her motivations does soften my view of her character, hence why I'm of the unpopular stance of not hating her, if she is in fact really Susie. I wanted to have a way of letting out my own feelings, in addition to exploring some of hers. In particular, the part about closure, and all the excuses she makes, are a point of importance.
> 
> The Alice doll in this story acts a lot like my counselor, someone that constantly reinforces that even through all my twisted thinking, I'm not a bad person at the core, to frame things in a different lighting so I'm not as judgmental or polarized in my viewpoint. It's very effective. I feel like if Alice had someone to talk to, hell, if ANYONE in this universe had some time and the willingness to sit down and open up about things, that the story would be fundamentally different. 
> 
> One last note before I let you go. This doll is meant to act as a physical version of the cartoon character, holding her spirit temporarily. Writing this a few months ago, the idea hasn't left me, and if I have a chance, there's another work I'd love to incorporate this into down the line. 
> 
> Thank you for reading my story, I appreciate your time!


End file.
